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we would not be able to distinguish between what we want and what others want. We also would not be able to know ourselves, or to develop autonomy, or integrity.
Without boundaries we could not experience wholeness. Wholeness means that all of us is brought together within our boundaries.
Our father has an important role in developing our trust to go out into the world by ourselves. Then we can separate from the merging with mother and begin to sense ourselves and our boundaries.
When our growing boundaries were not supported or respected in childhood, we may experience many problems later in life, because we did not learn to recognize
our own boundaries or those of others.
When a mother needs the child so much that the flow of caring, support and love is reversed, going from child to mother instead of from mother to child, then the child will feel responsible for the mother.
As an adult this child may take over responsibility of others and may at the same time expect others to take care of him as he still longs for the care of mother, which he never got as a child. If we do not know the limits of our responsibility we will have difficulties to develop our integrity, because integrity includes taking responsibility for the consequences of what we do. More ...